F.B.I. agents during a raid in Chinatown in Manhattan on Tuesday. Twenty-six people, including six lawyers and employees of at least 10 law firms, were arrested in what the authorities said was a plot to orchestrate false asylum claims for Chinese immigrants.Credit
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

They invented woeful tales of persecution for their Chinese clients. Prepped them on how to lie about having had a forced abortion. Even tutored them on religion.

In all, 26 people, including 6 lawyers, were charged Tuesday with helping Chinese immigrants submit false asylum claims in an effort to stay in the United States, law enforcement officials said.

The indictments describe elaborate schemes based in law offices in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens, which involved teams of paralegals and office managers, translators and a church official, who conspired to dupe immigration officials by inventing stories of political and religious persecution for their clients, officials said.

The indictments say female clients who sought asylum based on China’s one-child policy were encouraged to prepare for asylum interviews by watching Chinese soap operas so they could describe the experience of a forced abortion. Some paralegals were called “story writers” for their knack for inventing detailed tales of persecution. A church official in Flushing prepared clients for questions on religion by offering basic instruction in Christianity.

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the defendants of “weaving elaborate fictions” and making it “more difficult for those who are legitimately seeking refuge in this country.”

The indictments charged employees of at least 10 law firms, the authorities said. In the past few years, the firms filed more than 1,900 asylum applications, according to the indictments; officials did not say how many they believe were fraudulent.

Tuesday’s operation appeared to be among the largest roundups of lawyers and their associates in New York City in connection with asylum fraud allegations. Even so, the federal indictments only hinted at the pervasiveness of immigration fraud within the Chinese diaspora, experts said.

Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies and urban affairs at Hunter College, said he believed most Chinese asylum cases in New York City were fraudulent. “This is an industry,” Mr. Kwong said. “Everybody knows about it, and these violations go on all the time.”

Immigrants can apply for asylum within a year of arriving in the United States and may qualify if they can show that they have suffered persecution or have a “well-founded fear of future persecution” on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

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Far more Chinese immigrants seek and receive asylum in the United States than any other group, government figures show. In fiscal year 2011, about 8,600 Chinese immigrants received asylum, or more than 34 percent of all successful asylum seekers.

The investigation began after federal immigration officials in New York told investigators they were seeing similarities in many of the cases they were handling, according to an official briefed on the investigation.

In many of the cases reviewed by investigators, Chinese immigrants said they had been persecuted for being Christian or followers of Falun Gong. Others said they were persecuted for their political leanings. Yet others claimed they had suffered forcible abortions under China’s family-planning rules, the authorities said.

But investigators determined that many of the asylum applicants “had not actually suffered persecution in China,” according to the indictments.

In exchange for money, the indictments state, “the law firm would make up a story of persecution and the client would need to memorize that story.”

Many of the law firms referred clients to the Full Gospel Church in Flushing, where they would meet with a church official, Liying Lin, prosecutors said.

Ms. Lin, 29, provided services to asylum seekers including “training in the basic tenets of Christianity,” prosecutors said. But much of Ms. Lin’s instruction was specifically aimed at tricking the immigration authorities, according to the indictment against her, which claimed that she “trained asylum applicants on what questions about religious belief would be asked during an asylum interview and coached the clients on how to answer.”

In return for such instruction, applicants “were expected to make cash donations.” For an additional price, Ms. Lin provided certificates showing “the client’s attendance at church and/or the client’s baptism,” according to the indictment.

All 26 defendants were charged with conspiring to commit immigration fraud. They were awaiting arraignment Tuesday night.

Jeffrey E. Singer contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on December 19, 2012, on Page A28 of the New York edition with the headline: Law Firms Are Accused of Aiding False Asylum Claims for Chinese. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe